A movie that slices you open and tickles your funny bone, director/co-writer Dante Yore’s horror-comedy Fear Pharm (2020) has hit DVD shelves as of September 11 — just in time for Halloween! It is silly, for sure, full of one-liners and exaggerated characters, but it is also clever, surprising with an unexpected ending, unique motive for the killers, and having every single female character as a tenacious badass. By the end of the movie, I was rooting for everybody, be they killer or prey.

In Fear Pharm, four high school seniors — Wendy (Emily Sweet), Melanie (Tiana Tuttle), Brandon (Houston Stevenson), and Rustin (Chris Learyy) — set out for some fun at a Halloween pumpkin patch. When Melanie wins a trip to the VIP corn maze, the owner, Hershel (John Littlefield) whisks the group away to a secluded part of the farm where the friends must choose from 5 paths and complete at least one in under 2 hours in order to win a $10,000 prize. Deciding to split up to better their odds, they each take a path of their own, but each one soon runs into a terrifying member of Hershel’s sadistic family who wish to capture the teens and harvest their skin… for the family’s budding pharmaceutical skincare line.

While it does not directly break the fourth wall, at times, Fear Pharm does have that meta feel similar to movies like Scream (1996) where both the audience and the cast are in on the fun of the ensuing horror antics. Most of the film is light-hearted and goofy, but thankfully it gets to the horror with the last half hour, revving up the violence and showing its skin. This last stretch of the movie is the best, taking a closer look at the killer family, which included a manic-pixie-nightmare daughter played by Aimee Stolte, who nearly dresses, acts, talks, and even has a scientific background like Harley Quinn, but is lovable all the same. Another memorable character was Chris Leary as Rustin, who was definitely the comic relief, and though childish at times, the comedy, mostly carried by him, was the most endearing aspect of this movie.

The film itself is pretty well-directed as far as how coherent and entertaining it is, and how high-quality and well-produced it looks, and despite its sometimes cliché characters and predictable plot points, Fear Pharm is definitely a fun, Halloween movie that is worth a watch. When I already thought I loved the ending, director Dante Yore surprised me with an even better, more horrific ending after what I thought was the final scene — the rest of the movie may have been laughing at itself, but the last five minutes are awesome, subverting expectation and delivering a very-well set-up unhappy ending.

I laughed out loud, I screamed (a little), and overall, I was thoroughly entertained by Fear Pharm. It is borderline bad and it is obviously not trying to be the next great horror film — its ability to laugh at itself allows the audience, in turn, to laugh at its antics, and if one goes into the movie with a B-movie mindset then it should be a good watch. Fear Pharm is a teen horror-comedy that has just the right ratio of cheesy one-liners to squirm-inducing gory violence — a little bit for the gorehounds, and a little bit for the chuckleheads, I imagine that this movie would best please those who appreciate bad, campy movies.

6 out of 10